As we celebrate the saints who have shown us God’s holiness in so many ways, may we be especially grateful to St. Joseph, the righteous man, whose example encourages us to seek always to “live the truth in love” (Eph 4:15).

—from St. Anthony Messenger’s “St. Joseph: Man of Virtue“
by John R. Barker, OFM

—from St. Anthony Messenger‘s “St. Francis and the Eucharist“
by John Barker, OFM

St. Francis encouraged all of us to see the humble goodness of God in the Eucharist, and to “pour out our hearts” to him in gratitude.

Thomas of Celano, the first biographer of Francis of Assisi, tells us that the saint often used to tell people: “If I should happen at the same time to come upon any saint coming from heaven and some little poor priest, I would first show honor to the priest, and hurry more quickly to kiss his hands. For I would say to the saint: ‘Hey, St. Lawrence, wait! His hands may handle the Word of Life and possess something more than human!'” Such was the love of St. Francis for the Eucharist.

In Jesus Christ, Francis saw the incredible generosity of a God who assumed our poor, fragile human nature out of love for us and all creation. It was this good God, who did not insist on his divine prerogatives, but readily “emptied himself” to join us in our poverty, who captured Francis’ heart. Just as he had great affection for the God who became flesh, so Francis had profound respect and love for the Eucharist, in which the Word of the Father continues to pour forth God’s goodness by “coming down” to us daily on the altar under the guise of bread and wine.

Francis’ writings are filled with exhortations and exclamations about the astounding humility of a God who does not hesitate to offer himself to us. For Francis, the Eucharist is the most striking and regular reminder that God truly is “the fullness of good.”

The Most Holy Body and Blood

In his writings, St. Francis never uses the word Eucharist to describe the sacrament. Instead, he refers most often to “the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Such a concrete, descriptive phrase is to be expected from a saint who tended to avoid abstract thinking and language. But in this case, it is especially important because by referring regularly to “the Body and Blood of the Lord,” Francis emphasizes that the sacrament is not a static “thing” but a dynamic person, who is present on the altar just as much as he was when he walked with his disciples in Galilee. As he tells us in his Testament, which he wrote at the end of his life, “I see nothing corporally of the most high Son of God except His most holy Body and Blood.”

When Francis gazed upon the sacrament, he did not see a symbol or a reminder of the crucified Lord, but Jesus himself, who “puts Himself into [the priest’s] hands and we touch Him and receive Him daily with our mouth.” Even to refer to it as “Eucharist,” correct as the term might be, was not enough to capture the reality of the living, breathing presence of the One who each day “comes down from the bosom of the Father upon the altar.”

In all of this, Francis does nothing more than express orthodox Catholic faith in the Real Presence, but his sense of this presence is characteristically lively, concrete, and even intimate. For Francis, his Lord and brother Jesus came to him personally whenever he received Communion. This is a reality that can only be grasped by the grace of the Spirit, which is love.

It is the work of the Spirit that allows us to believe that what we receive from the hands of the priest is truly the Lord himself, just as it is the Spirit who enables us to discern the word of the Father in Jesus of Nazareth. Therefore, he says, let those who believe that Jesus truly is the Son of God also believe that the bread and wine we see with our “bodily eyes” are in fact “His most holy Body and Blood living and true.” There may be those who, for whatever reason, do not believe in this great gift, but Francis urges those who cannot discern the true presence with “spiritual eyes” to therefore refrain from receiving it, lest—as St. Paul himself said—they “eat and drink judgment on themselves” (1 Cor 11:29). The saint repeats this warning throughout his writings.

Francis also recognizes that our reception of the Eucharist cannot be isolated from a larger determination to live within the will of God by eradicating vice and sin, and “producing worthy fruits of penance,” by which he means loving God and neighbor in concrete ways. The whole reason that Jesus humbly presents himself in the Eucharist is to enable us not only to be reconciled to God, but also to continue to become more and more like him. One cannot receive the divine gift, so lovingly offered, without understanding why Jesus offers himself in the first place—and striving to live accordingly.

O Sublime Humility!

Most astounding to Francis was the way in which Jesus is present to us in the Eucharist. When the Word of the Father first came to us in the flesh, he did so in great humility and poverty. In fact, for Francis, the very act of becoming human reflected the humility of the all-powerful God. Although he is now glorified and seated at the right hand of the Father, Jesus comes to us in even more humility and poverty, not only under the guise of ordinary bread, but as food.

In a letter he wrote to all the friars, Francis breaks into rapturous praise of the humility of the One who came to serve and still comes to serve: “O wonderful loftiness and stupendous dignity! O sublime humility! O humble sublimity! The Lord of the universe, God and Son of God, so humbles Himself that for our salvation He hides Himself under an ordinary piece of bread! Brothers, look at the humility of God and pour out your hearts before Him!”

O sublime humility! And what humble awesomeness! The Eucharist captures for Francis the central and most beautiful paradox about the character of God revealed in Christ.

The all-powerful, magnificent, all-sufficient, and splendid creator of the universe loves his creation so much that he does not hesitate to lower himself—even coming as a piece of bread to save us. This is what makes God so lovable and so supremely good, so magnificent and splendid for Francis. First the Incarnation and now the Eucharist remind us constantly that the goodness, love, and mercy of God lead God in Jesus to “give Himself totally” to us. Out of love for us, God holds nothing back, and this is the humility and the poverty of God. Only the most exalted and all-powerful God could be this free, this generous, this good.

Hold Back Nothing of Yourselves

In the same letter to all the friars, Francis exclaims that there is only one possible response to such divine generosity and humility: “Humble yourselves that you may be exalted by him! Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves, that He Who gives Himself totally to you may receive you totally!”

All Christians bear the image and likeness of Jesus Christ, and so all Christians are called to be as much like him as possible. For St. Francis of Assisi, this means being as humbly generous with God as God has been with us. In the letter Francis wrote to the priests of the order, the saint makes the point a little differently: “Are we not moved by piety [that is, profound respect] . . . when the pious [profoundly respectful] Lord puts Himself into our hands and we touch and receive Him daily? Do we refuse to recognize that we must come into His hands?”

The Eucharist, as the humble offering by Jesus of his own body and blood to us, invites a reciprocal response. We are called to observe his humble generosity—he certainly doesn’t need to offer himself to us this way or any way—and to respond by being humbly generous toward him.

How, Francis says, can we receive the body and blood of the Lord, in which God holds back nothing of himself for our salvation, and not resolve to hold back nothing for God? How can we not show the creator of the universe the same loving respect he shows us in the Eucharist?

Honoring Christ in the Eucharist

In his letters and other writings, Francis frequently refers to the need to show great respect for the most holy body and blood of the Lord who gives himself completely to us. In the first place, anything that relates to the sacrifice of the Mass must be clean. In his letter to the Franciscan clergy, he urges those priests who are negligent in these matters to “consider how very dirty are the chalices, corporals, and altar-linens upon which His Body and Blood are sacrificed.”

He repeats this exhortation in his letter to those friars who are in charge of Franciscan houses (“custodians”), urging them to “humbly beg the clergy to revere above all else the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. . . . They should hold as precious the chalices, corporals, appointments of the altar, and everything that pertains to the sacrifice.” And in his letter to all the friars of the order, he urges once again that all vessels and liturgical items, including the books that contain Christ’s holy words, be treated with the reverence due them.

In all of this, Francis is reflecting not only his own reverence for the body and blood of Christ, but also recent Church attempts to address what appears to have been a widespread laxity when it came to honoring the Eucharist.

The Fourth Lateran Council, held in 1215, had ordered all churches and church vessels be kept clean. This was followed up by papal letters urging the same. The same council also decreed that the Eucharist itself must be carefully handled and secured under lock in appropriate places. (This was in an age before churches had tabernacles on the altar.) Here, too, Francis reflects the urging of the popes when he instructs the custodians that, “if the most holy Body of the Lord is very poorly reserved in any place, let It be placed and locked up in a precious place according to the command of the Church.”

The casual attitude toward the Eucharist that Francis and the popes opposed may have stemmed from a general failure to understand or believe that Jesus Christ was truly present in the sacrament, that it was in fact “the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In several places, Francis comments on the fact that the Eucharist is frequently “received unworthily [by priests] and administered to others without discernment.” The lack of discernment he has in mind is a failure to recognize that what we receive from the altar is not the same as other foods. In one of his “Admonitions” to the friars, he insists that we must see “the sacrament sanctified by the words of the Lord upon the altar . . . according to the Spirit and the Divinity.”

Humble Gift, Humble God

Francis’ frequent statements about the Eucharist are, of course, marked by his characteristic emphasis on the profoundly generous humility of God, who is goodness itself. It was not enough for God to have mercy on us in our brokenness and sin. God could have done that “from a distance,” keeping the divine holiness and majesty far away from us and our tendency to be very unholy. But God is too good, too generous for that, and chose instead to embrace our broken human nature, quite literally, by becoming one of us in Jesus. This is not only an astounding act of love, but even more remarkably a humble one.

This “awesome and exalted humility and humble awesomeness” is—unbelievably!—extended to us every day, if we choose to accept it, in the form of bread and wine. Once again, the humble God does not choose to come to us any other way but the most simple, subtle, and unintimidating.

For St. Francis, there was only one way to respond to such generosity and goodness, and it was with praise, thanksgiving, and a desire to allow Jesus to transform us into his image and likeness.

God gives us everything we need to attain all of God’s gracious promises. Especially, he gives us himself in the body and blood of his son. In the words of St. Francis, “O how holy and how loving, gratifying, humbling, peace-giving, sweet, worthy of love, and above all things, desirable: to have such a Brother and such a Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,” who offered himself and still offers himself for us. The saint’s words prompt us to consider how we ought to respond to such a great gift, which is, after all, offered to us out of the infinite goodness of God’s humble heart.

Faced with a very difficult decision, Joseph teaches us that righteousness means loving both God and neighbor.

St. Matthew is the only evangelist who has much to say about St. Joseph—and he doesn’t tell us much!

We know that he was a carpenter or craftsman and that he was a descendant of King David. And we know that he was “righteous.” We know this because, at the time Mary conceived the Messiah, Joseph was betrothed to her, but not yet living with her. (When a couple was betrothed, they were considered married, but it was only some months later that the wife moved in with the husband, and they began normal married life.)

It was during this in-between time that Joseph learned that Mary was pregnant. St. Matthew tells us what Joseph did when he heard the news. His response has much to teach us about what it means to be righteous.

The Importance of Righteousness

Catholics don’t seem to use the word righteous much. You rarely hear us talking about striving to be righteous or admiring someone for his or her righteousness. Yet Jesus talks about righteousness quite often. In the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:3–12), in fact, he all but dwells on it: “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” and “Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.” Later, Jesus says, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:20), and “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Mt 6:33).

So why don’t we talk about righteousness very much? I suspect it’s because, at least in our American context, the idea of being righteous can be seen as a negative. Maybe it’s because we unconsciously put the word self before it. Who wants to be known as self-righteous? Or maybe we associate righteousness with a certain harshness and fiery zeal, as we see in caricatures of fire and brimstone preachers whose “righteous indignation” renders them inhumane and merciless.

Whatever the reason, the fact that we seldom talk positively about righteousness, despite the teaching of much of the Bible and of Jesus in particular, suggests that we might have a twisted sense of what this notion is all about. The saints we celebrate this month all hungered and thirsted for righteousness, so it’s a good time to take a closer look at what St. Joseph can teach us about this virtue.

_{Greg Friedman, OFM, talks about the righteousness of St. Joseph.}

A Righteous Decision

Matthew tells us what happened when Joseph learned of Mary’s pregnancy: “Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly” (Mt 1:19). This one little sentence, which we can so easily pass over, has a lot to say about what it means to be righteous.

Now for some technical work: The quote above is one translation of the Greek, and depending on which Bible you have, you might see a different translation. Many Bibles have something like,”Joseph her husband, being righteous, yet not wishing to disgrace her . . . .”

See the difference? Being righteous yet not wanting to expose Mary to shame suggests that he showed concern for Mary. It tells us that the desire to protect Mary arose from his desire to be righteous.

For Joseph, righteousness was not just about doing the right thing (as he understood it at the time), but also about doing it the right way. In other words, obeying God’s command and being kind to Mary were not mutually exclusive. Far from it, in fact, since showing compassion toward Mary also fulfilled God’s commands.

When Joseph found out that Mary was pregnant, it naturally didn’t occur to him that Mary remained a virgin and that she had conceived by the Holy Spirit; he only learned this later from the angel. Like anyone else, Joseph would have assumed that Mary conceived in the usual way, and since he knew he wasn’t the father, this meant that she was unfaithful. This may have been very difficult for Joseph to believe, given what he knew of Mary’s character, but there it was: the indisputable fact of her pregnancy. Faced with this, he had to respond.

Loving God and a Neighbor

According to Jewish law, infidelity during the betrothal period was considered adultery, and Joseph was required by divine law to divorce Mary, or “send her away.” In making the decision to do this, Joseph was being righteous and obedient to the will of God. He was, in other words, fulfilling the commandment to “love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Dt 6:5; Mt 22:37). Jesus would later teach his disciples that obeying God’s commandments is an expression of righteousness.

While Joseph was required to terminate the betrothal and send Mary away, he still had a choice to make. He could have made the whole affair very public, perhaps out of revenge or a strong sense of “justice.”

Artwork by Jessie Wagnon

In doing so, he would not only have exposed her to public shame, but also possibly to death by stoning (Dt 22:21–24 and Jn 8:4–5). Joseph decided not to do this. Instead, he wanted to minimize the damage to her as much as possible by dealing with the situation discreetly.

Despite what some translations may say, this act of mercy was not despite Joseph’s righteousness. It was an expression of it, every bit as much as was his fidelity to the command to send Mary away. Joseph knew, as all good Jews knew, that God commands that we love our neighbor as ourselves (Lv 19:18; Mt 22:39). Joseph, because he was righteous, knew that being true to God meant sending Mary away, but he also knew that God demands charity. A few years later, St. Paul would urge the Ephesians to “grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ,” precisely by “living the truth in love” (Eph 4:15). This is righteousness.

Being Righteous Is Demanding

It must have been very hard for Joseph to make the decision to divorce Mary, but given what he knew at the time, there was no other course of action. Joseph knew that a righteous person does not compromise when it comes to the will of God, no matter how difficult fidelity may be. This is why Jesus warns his disciples that they will be persecuted for the sake of righteousness (Mt 5:10). This is why many Jews and Christians have chosen to be martyred rather than be unfaithful to God. And this is why many modern-day Christians have bravely remained faithful in the face of relentless social pressure to speak or act in ways that conflict with the Gospels.

Righteousness is often costly, and sometimes that cost involves others. Jesus also insists, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Mt 10:37). As much as Jesus teaches his disciples that righteousness requires a demanding faithfulness to God, even when it goes against our natural inclinations, he also teaches that mercy is demanded of God as well. He insists that “judgment and mercy and fidelity” are all “the weightier things of the law” (Mt 23:23).

Joseph knew this, too, and so he chose to send Mary away quietly in the hopes that it would minimize her pain and possibly save her life. Joseph realized, as Jesus would one day teach, that it is blessed to be merciful because it is God’s will that we show as much mercy as we can even when we must do something very difficult. This is God’s way, and so it must be ours too: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Lk 6:36).

In this one brief statement about Joseph, who decided to send Mary away without disgracing her, we find the essence of what it means to be righteous. It turns out that righteousness, far from being a cold, calculating devotion to justice, is a warm, faithful virtue that always seeks merciful justice and just mercy.

As we celebrate the saints who have shown us God’s holiness in so many ways, may we be especially grateful to St. Joseph, the righteous man, whose example encourages us to seek always to “live the truth in love” (Eph 4:15).

The Gospel of Mark, which we will be hearing on Sundays this year, is full of stories about Jesus healing people. He gives sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. He casts out demons that torment innocent children. He heals a woman with a hemorrhage and a man from his paralysis. In all, Mark features more than a dozen of these “mighty deeds” of Jesus—about one fourth of his Gospel is about them.

That such stories should fill so much space in the shortest of the four Gospels can only mean that Mark considered them very significant. This may seem obvious. Clearly, we might say, they are important because they demonstrate that Jesus is the Messiah who has power to heal and cast out demons. It’s true—this is part of the reason Mark includes such stories in his Gospel. But if that were the whole point of the stories, one or two of them would undoubtedly have sufficed to make it. So, why are there so many mighty deeds in Mark? What do they mean—for him and for us?

What Is a ‘Mighty Deed’?

We should begin by considering how the people of Jesus’ time understood what was happening when Jesus healed diseases. Today, we understand the natural world to operate according to impersonal forces or “laws of nature.” When someone experiences healing that cannot be explained according to our understanding of these laws, we might call it a miracle, understood to be God’s “interfering” somehow with the laws of nature.

People at the time of Jesus didn’t conceive of the world in terms of impersonal laws. Rather, it was the will and purpose of God that supported and guaranteed the normal functioning of the world. Divine power was always at work, keeping things moving according to the divine wisdom. The extraordinary—such as a sudden or unexpected healing—was considered a particular eruption of this always-present divine power rather than an interruption of the working of the cosmic machinery. Because of this, the word miracle as we use it today does not really reflect all that well how ancient people understood the extraordinary.

The Gospel of Mark often refers to such actions by Jesus as “mighty deeds.” This is a good term for us to use here because it helps us focus on the source and meaning of the act rather than on the mechanism behind it. When Mark assembled his Gospel from the many traditions about Jesus healing people and exorcising demons, he did not simply string them together haphazardly. Instead, he arranged and told them so that they would help him express who Jesus is, what he came to do and what all this means for disciples of Jesus.

When we hear these stories about Jesus today, we can learn much by attending to some of the larger messages being presented through the stories. To give an idea of how we might do this, we can look at three particular stories: the first exorcism that Jesus performs and two stories about giving sight to the blind.

The First Exorcism

Immediately after his baptism and trial in the wilderness, Jesus proclaims, “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand” (1:15). His first mighty deed occurs shortly after, while he is teaching (1:21-28).

Mark tells us that “the people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.” Suddenly, an unclean spirit who has possessed a man cries out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” Jesus orders the spirit to be quiet and come out of the man. At this, the people wonder, “What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.”

Here, at the beginning of the Gospel, we discover the significance of the entire mission of Jesus. His advent and the “time of fulfillment” are nothing less than the overcoming by God of the evil forces at work in the world. This is not just a confrontation between one unclean spirit and Jesus. The spirit knows that Jesus has come to destroy “us”: all of Satan’s forces. Jesus has come to interfere with the havoc that the evil powers wreak in the world—sickness, possession, sin, death.

What God is doing in all of creation is enacted in the life of this one man, whose healing is a manifestation of what God’s Reign is all about. Mark wants us to understand everything else in his Gospel—all the other exorcisms and healings and, eventually, Jesus’ death and resurrection—as manifestations of this great battle that God is waging and winning against his cosmic enemies.

This story is also concerned with the question of Jesus’ “authority.” The people recognize this unique authority right away, and they are amazed by it. At the end of the story, after the exorcism, they once again express astonishment at this “new teaching with authority.”

That a story whose main attraction appears to be an exorcism begins and ends with mention of Jesus’ teaching authority tells us that the two are intimately connected. What is “new” in the teaching of Jesus is that it is accompanied by a sign that confirms it—the Kingdom of God is at hand, and you can see it for yourself.

When the scribes teach, they talk about God; when Jesus teaches, he brings about God’s
Reign. This is because the authority Jesus exerts is God’s authority, God’s right to rule his creation, which he is now exercising through his Holy One.

For Mark, the teaching of Jesus is not simply words about the Kingdom of God; it is the power of God himself, acting on their behalf. It is the victory of God’s Reign—the good news—in word and fact.

What this story makes clear in very concrete, vivid terms is that, in Jesus, God is actively fighting evil, whose ultimate destruction is already ensured. The other stories of exorcisms and healings in Mark, whatever lesson they may hold in themselves, also participate in the meaning of this first story.

Healing the Blind

Mark wants his readers to understand the mighty deeds of Jesus as an expression of God’s victory over the forces of evil that bind and torment humanity. It is part of God’s overall plan to heal creation where it has gone awry, to restore it to its intended wholeness and harmony. Sickness, too, was considered a disorder in God’s creation.

On the basis of such texts as Isaiah 35:5-6, Jewish tradition expected that the coming of the Messiah would be accompanied by healings of every sort of human infirmity: “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; Then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the dumb will sing.”

But there was always the danger that the crowds would be distracted, as it were, by the mighty deeds of Jesus and fail to understand the true demands of Jesus’ mission, for him and for his followers. Too much concentration on God’s triumphs can lead to a triumphalism that does not recognize the sacrifice required to achieve them. Mark works very hard to make it clear that the mighty deeds of Jesus can only be properly understood when seen from the perspective of the cross: God’s victory over evil comes at a tremendous cost.

Mark dramatizes how difficult it can be for Christian disciples to truly understand how much of a shadow the cross casts over the mission of Jesus. The disciples are consistently portrayed as well-intentioned but slow, never really comprehending the meaning of what Jesus says and does.

This is especially true when Jesus begins to talk about death, beginning in the second half of the Gospel. Here, the journey to Jerusalem and the cross begins, and Jesus begins to teach his disciples who he really is and who they are expected to be.

The story of the journey to Jerusalem places great emphasis on two main things—Jesus’ predictions of his passion and his teachings on discipleship—making it clear that the two are connected. To be a disciple, we must be willing to follow Christ to the cross (8:34).

To help his readers appreciate the relationship between the journey of Jesus to the cross and the journey of discipleship, Mark brackets this section with two accounts of Jesus healing a blind man, placing them so that they become symbolic of the relationship between the healing power of God, the cross of Christ and the call to discipleship.

Coming to ‘See’ Our Discipleship

The first story is the healing of the blind man in Bethsaida (8:22-26). As Jesus turns toward Jerusalem, the people of Bethsaida bring him a blind man and ask Jesus “to touch him.” Jesus performs a rather strange ritual of putting spittle on the man’s eyes and then laying hands on him. When Jesus asks the man if he sees anything, the man says that he sees “people looking like trees and walking.” In other words, he has gained some of his sight, but it is imperfect and hazy. Jesus lays hands on him a second time and his sight is restored completely: “He could see everything distinctly.”

There are a number of intriguing features in this story, but the one most relevant here is the fact that the man only gains his sight gradually. Mark presents the event in such a way that we see in the man’s healing a symbol of discipleship.

Sight, in the Bible, is often a metaphor for understanding and accepting the ways and will of God. The blind man of Bethsaida stands for all of us who would be disciples, but who only come to understand what this really means gradually. The story is not really about Jesus having to “try again” to heal the man. It is about coming to “see” our discipleship in fits and starts, gaining at first only the bare outlines and fuzziest comprehension of what following Christ means. It is only through the ongoing, healing ministration of Jesus himself that we can “see distinctly” what we are called to be in the world. And this can only happen when we understand the cross of Christ as our cross, too. It is fitting, then, that this story comes at the very beginning of the journey to Jerusalem.

At the end of the journey, Jesus heals another blind man (10:46-52). Jesus and his followers are leaving Jericho, which is just a few miles east of Jerusalem. As they depart, Bartimaeus, a blind man begging on the side of the road, calls out, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.”

When Jesus tells the people to bring the blind man to him, Bartimaeus throws aside his cloak, leaps up and comes to Jesus, who asks him, “What do you want me to do for you?” Bartimaeus replies that he wants to see. Without touching him, Jesus says to him, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.” And immediately, the blind man gains his sight and follows Jesus on his way to Jerusalem.

In this story, we have another symbolic expression of discipleship, but now the context and the results present us with a new lesson. It occurs at the end of the journey to Jerusalem, during which Jesus has repeatedly instructed his disciples about the cost of his own mission and the demands of their discipleship.

Now, Mark shows symbolically what discipleship looks like when one has fully learned these lessons. It is characterized by crystal-clear sight: Bartimaeus gains his sight completely and instantly, even without the need to be touched. His approach to Jesus has been one of faith, a strong conviction that Jesus can and will “have pity” on him. When the followers of Jesus (we can see here a symbol of the faith community) tell him to “take courage; get up, he is calling you” (the call to discipleship), he throws off his cloak and runs to Jesus. His response is immediate and confident; he knows Jesus will heal him.

For Mark, this can only happen at the end of the journey, as it were, to the cross. Only a disciple who fully understands what sort of messiah Jesus is can possess such a mature faith. Significantly, we are told that Bartimaeus follows Jesus “on the way.” Bartimaeus, who represents the completely “enlightened” follower, goes with Jesus to Jerusalem, symbolically following him to the cross.

All of the healing stories in Mark express not only the facts of the healings, but also the larger messages that Mark wishes to express through them. Reading them with an appreciation of this can deepen our understanding of the Gospel of Jesus and our own call to follow him.

So What about Us?

How might we gain a deeper understanding of Mark’s words? I would like to make three suggestions. First, we should concentrate on the meaning Mark ascribes to the mighty deeds of Jesus. Healing is a fundamental aspect of God’s Reign. In Jesus, God was fulfilling the promises he had made so long before to restore all of creation.

Second, these stories challenge us to open our eyes to the way Jesus continues to work in the world. Addiction, cruelty, suffering of all kinds—and apathy toward it—are some of the forms that evil takes in our world today, and people have been freed from them. Can we recognize in our own lives, or in the lives of others, how God has confronted these evils and conquered them? Can we, to use the words of the author Mary Catherine Hilkert, O.P., “name grace” in our world? More importantly, can we give hope to those who still suffer by proclaiming what God has already done for others?

Third, we are obliged to see Jesus’ mighty deeds from the perspective of the cross, itself a manifestation of evil. It is true that through Jesus, God has struck the fatal blow to evil. In the end, God’s Reign will be completely triumphant, but not yet. For the time being, the cross must still be borne in every generation by every follower of Jesus.

These stories challenge us not only to “name grace,” but to “name evil” as well. In what ways does evil still wreak havoc in our world, our communities, our own lives? As followers of Jesus, do we have the love it takes to confront that evil, as Jesus did on the cross? Do we have faith that if we risk confronting evil, Jesus will be with us? Do we dare hope that taking up the cross by naming and challenging evil can bring healing?

If we are not yet able to do all this, then at least we can cry out to Jesus, like the father of a boy with a demon (9:22), “Have compassion on us and help us!”

The Gospel of Luke, read at Mass on most Sundays this year, affirms that God values each of us regardless of age, wealth, health or gender.

The Gospel of Luke assures us that the Kingdom of God, in its fullness, will confound all our expectations and will overturn our experiences. In fact, in the Kingdom of God everything will be turned upside down.

This is especially true when it comes to power, privilege and wealth. Luke assures us time and again that in God’s Kingdom those who struggle in life now—those who are at the bottom or on the edges of human society—will suddenly find themselves at the top and in the center.

On the other hand, he warns those who now enjoy the greatest human security and social advantage that their experience may be very different. As Jesus tells his listeners on one occasion, “Behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last” (Luke 13:30, New American Bible, also used for other quotes). This notion that in the end God will turn everything we know upside down is often called the “Great Reversal.” It is a hallmark of Luke’s Gospel, where it appears frequently.

Mary’s Magnificat

The announcement of the Great Reversal appears early in the Gospel in the Magnificat (1:46-55), Mary’s great song of praise. Shortly after she consents to become the mother of Jesus, the young girl from the little town of Nazareth hurries to visit her cousin Elizabeth who, she has learned from the Angel Gabriel, has conceived a child in her old age. When the two meet, Elizabeth bursts into a joyous welcome for “the mother of my Lord” (1:43).

Mary responds by offering praise to God for what he has done for her:

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my savior.
For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness.” (1:46b-48a)

Mary represents the most powerless and insignificant people in her society: young, female, poor. Yet God has chosen her—of all people—to be the mother of the long-awaited Messiah. Mary’s lowliness, which in human eyes would surely disqualify her from even being considered for such an unimaginably important role in God’s plan of salvation, is exactly what makes her so perfect for it.

Mary is “lowly “not simply in social status, but also in her relationship to God. Her social vulnerability allows her to be spiritually vulnerable as well. She is humble, open to the call of God, however frightening it may be, however impossible it may seem. Because she knows she is so dependent on God’s mercy, she is radically free and open to put herself at the disposal of God’s glory.

Although she sings that “the Mighty One has done great things for me” (1:49), Mary also understands that what God has done for her as an individual is a sign of God’s concern for all the lowly:

“He has shown might with his arm,
dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart.
He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones
but lifted up the lowly.
The hungry he has filled with good things;
the rich he has sent away empty.” (1:51-53)

God’s action on Mary’s behalf signals an overturning of society as a whole. Not only are the lowly lifted up and the hungry fed well, but the rich and the powerful have actually lost their positions in society. What God intends is not just that those who are without will have, but that those who have will be without.

This is a declaration of God’s judgment on the arrogant and the proud, the exact opposite of the lowly and humble. Such people are not open to hearing the call of God and, as will become quite evident in the rest of the Gospel, are particularly resistant to hearing Jesus proclaim the Kingdom of God.

Their sense of security and well-being prevents them from seeing how dependent they are on God’s mercy. Thus, their social invulnerability has created in them a similar spiritual invulnerability. The proud and arrogant effectively shut themselves out of the Kingdom, resisting the call to conversion and the acceptance of God’s mercy, the two keys to that Kingdom.

What are we to make of the fact that Mary declares that these things have already happened? Anyone could see 2,000 years ago that the rich and powerful were still quite rich and quite powerful, and that the lowly and hungry were no better off than before.

According to some scholars, the original Greek uses the past tense here to indicate habitual action, so that Mary is describing a God who routinely upsets the rich and powerful while raising up the lowly. Other scholars argue that the past tense here means what it often does when used by biblical prophets, to indicate a future event that has been firmly declared by God. In that sense, it is as good as done.

While one does not have to choose either of these options, the Magnificat clearly refers to an eschatological reversal, that is, to one that will occur in the coming age. We recognize this as already inaugurated by God’s making Mary the mother of the Messiah.

Blessings and Woes

God’s Great Reversal will become a significant, and disturbing, feature of the teaching of Jesus. In his Sermon on the Plain (6:20-49), Jesus proclaims these four blessings (or beatitudes):

“Blessed are you who are poor, for the Kingdom of God is yours.
Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
and when they exclude and insult you
and denounce your name as evil
on account of the Son of Man.
Rejoice and leap for joy on that day!
Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.” (6:20b-23a)

Poor, hungry, mourning and hated people receive from Jesus a great consolation: One day things will be different. The poor and hungry of the world are not blessed because they are poor and hungry—poverty is not held up here as a good thing—but because what they do not have now, they will one day have in the Kingdom of God, which is already theirs!

Even those who experience rejection because of Jesus should consider themselves fortunate, not because being hated is a good thing but because their fidelity to the Son of Man in the face of opposition assures them a place in heaven.

Hatred, poverty, mourning and hunger are social evils that are not acceptable to God, and never have been, as the prophets relentlessly insisted. Blessing lies not in being poor or in being hated, but in the fact that in the world to come, the poor and the hated know that their fortunes will be reversed.

What is a consolation to the lowly in this world is disturbing news for the comfortable, whom Jesus informs what they can expect:

“But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
But woe to you who are filled now,
for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will grieve and weep.
Woe to you when all speak well of you,
for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.” (6:24-26)

Each of the earlier blessings has been matched by a corresponding woe. The rich will have no need of consolation in the coming age; they have it now. The well-fed, the carefree and even the socially admired of this world will not experience consolation in the coming age.

Like his mother before him, Jesus makes the disturbing announcement that the fullness of the Kingdom of God might be less than enjoyable for some people.

At this point, we might ask: What is wrong with being wealthy, well-fed or highly thought of? Doesn’t God want these things for all of us? It is easy to see why Jesus would assure the poor and hungry that one day their situation will be remedied, but why should the rich and well-fed be punished in the coming age for their current prosperity?

Is there something wrong with being prosperous or with enjoying the good things in life? The answer is no; there is not. But social and economic security can blind us to certain realities and make us deaf to others, making us unable to respond to the ethical and the spiritual demands of the Kingdom of God.

Later in the Gospel, Jesus tells a story demonstrating that social invulnerability can be spiritually dangerous.

Lazarus and the Rich Man

There once was a rich man, Jesus tells his disciples (16:19-31), who used to dress in expensive clothes and dine well every day. At his gate there was a very poor man named Lazarus, who instead of being covered with fine linen was covered with sores. Instead of dining sumptuously every day, Lazarus longed for even the smallest scrap from the rich man’s table. After both men die, the rich man finds himself in fiery torment in the netherworld, while Lazarus is comfortably beside Abraham and all the righteous.

On seeing this, the rich man orders Abraham to send Lazarus with water to quench his thirst. Abraham refuses, noting that the rich man had been very comfortable in life.

Then the rich man begs Abraham to send Lazarus to the rich man’s brothers to warn them, so that they can avoid his fate. Still refusing, Abraham reminds the man that his brothers have all the warnings they need in the teachings of Moses and the prophets.

Once again, we have the Great Reversal, this time written in the lives of two individuals. Their situations in this life and the next can perhaps be understood to represent those of the poor and the rich in general. We can be quite happy for Lazarus, who surely deserved to receive great comfort with Abraham after such a miserable life.

But what of the rich man? What was his crime that he should deserve such torment? Jesus makes it clear that it was not his wealth that was the problem. He is not condemned simply for being rich and well-fed; he is condemned because his good fortune blinded him to the moral responsibility he had toward Lazarus. The rich man failed to take care of the poor, a religious obligation made abundantly clear in the teachings of Moses and the prophets (see, for example, Deuteronomy 15:7-11, Amos 6:1-14 and Isaiah 58:6-9).

Because the rich man addresses Lazarus by name and obviously knew him in life, he does not even have the excuse that he didn’t know there was a poor beggar suffering at his door. To make matters worse, the rich man seems to feel that even in death Lazarus should serve him, first, by bringing him some water and, then, by being a messenger to his brothers.

Insensitivity to the plight of the poor man is aggravated by arrogance and a sense of entitlement. Despite the insistence of his religious tradition that the well-off must have compassion for the poor, the rich man’s comfort and satisfaction with life made him deaf to God’s word. And so his fate is sealed and his fortunes reversed.

What about Us?

Such a message must have been particularly compelling, and probably not a little challenging, for the Christians who first received Luke’s Gospel. It seems clear that the evangelist himself came from a privileged level of society (his Greek is very sophisticated, indicating a good education), and he most likely was writing for other educated and affluent Christians.

The question of wealth and possessions comes up time and again both in the Gospel and in the Acts of the Apostles, also written by Luke as a companion piece to the Gospel. Acts also emphasizes God’s enduring love for every person.

The relationship of material wellbeing to discipleship must have been a particularly critical issue for Luke’s audience. The question was: How should Christians who are socially secure relate to their own well-being and to the needs of others?

Contemporary Christians, particularly those of us who live in relatively prosperous societies, are certainly called to ask the same question. To those of us who are able to enjoy material and social prosperity, the Great Reversal may seem like very Bad News indeed. What are we to make of it? What does Jesus want us to know?

One thing that is very clear about the Great Reversal is that it is the work of God, the God who acts to set things right, to bring healing and liberation in this world and in the next. It is not something that humans can accomplish, and so the announcement of the Great Reversal is not a call for humanly orchestrated social upheaval.

At the same time, it is not a call for maintaining the status quo by assuring poor people that their poverty is a blessing. The call of Moses and the prophets—and Jesus and the saints—is not only to care for the disadvantaged but also to work actively to bring about economic justice for all people. This charge remains our religious obligation, just as it was for the rich man.

The Great Reversal assures us that the poor, the vulnerable, the marginalized—all those who count for nothing in this world—count very much in the Kingdom of God. The future holds great promise for them because God cares deeply for them.

For those who find this life easy and satisfying, the Great Reversal serves as a warning. While they are not evil in themselves, wealth and power are spiritually dangerous, always threatening to lull us into complacency and insensitivity to the needs of others.

They can also make us proud, relying on our own resources and failing to recognize our ultimate dependency on God. Only when we recognize this dependency can we, like Mary, open ourselves to hear the call of God. Only when we recognize our dependence on God can we be humble enough to hear Jesus’ invitation into the Kingdom of God, where the last in this world will be first and the first in this world—the proud, the arrogant, the satisfied—will be last.